Society often puts people into one of two categories: Intelligent and worthy of attention, or stupid and ignored. But who sets the standards we must live up to?

This article, by student, Anotidaishe Chinyadza, was produced out of News Decoder’s school partnership program. Anotidaishe is a student at African Leadership Academy in South Africa, a News Decoder partner institution. Learn more about how News Decoder can work with your school.

Intelligence is often defined as the mental quality that consists of the ability to learn from experience, adapt to new situations, understand and handle abstract concepts and use knowledge to manipulate one’s environment.

Although many people hold different views on what intelligence truly is, Australian psychology professors Gilles Gignac and Eva Szodorai noted that most scholars agree that human intelligence is a psychological construct. Despite this agreement, I have always wondered whether intelligence, as it is understood and valued in society, is a blessing or a curse.

In the society I come from, intelligence is often viewed as a trophy, an epitome of success. If you fail to meet this intelligence benchmark, life can quickly become a spiral of being made to believe that you will never amount to anything.

What makes this standard especially questionable is that, in most cases, intelligence is narrowly defined as academic ability. If you are fortunate enough to excel academically, you are praised and presented as a “model for the community.”

As exciting as this sounds, I fear the reality is far more complex.

The push to succeed

For me, it all began in my early years of primary school, third grade. I had received my first academic award for being the best in mathematics in my grade. I went home, told my mother and felt pure joy for my achievement. However, from that moment on, life took a different turn. Because of the potential my teachers, parents and those around me believed they saw in me, I was suddenly expected to do more. To always achieve perfect grades, to always get As, to always be at the top of the class.

While this may sound motivating, it was not. From that day forward, every assignment, every test and every piece of schoolwork came with an underlying fear: Am I meeting the standards society expects of an “intelligent, smart girl”? I became afraid of receiving any grade below an A.

Whenever I struggled with a concept or felt like I was failing, my self-worth felt threatened. My entire identity slowly began to revolve around academics and grades.

This was not how I wanted to use my academic ability. I did not want intelligence to become something that enslaved me. Unfortunately, that is what it became.

This was not because I imposed it on myself, but because of the immense societal pressure surrounding me. This experience is not unique to me. Many young people and children feel degraded when they believe they are not “smart enough” in school. They begin to feel as though they have failed in life simply because they do not meet society’s academic standards.

I do not believe this is how intelligence should be defined or experienced.

A blessing or a curse?

When I discussed this with a student at my school, he said that he often felt advantaged due to society believing he was “intelligent.” But he felt that people made assumptions about based on this “advantage” rather than actually knowing who he was.

He said that people who do not fit into this “intelligent” spectrum often find it difficult to fit into certain groups. He gave an example of teamwork situations where some students are othered because they are not “intelligent” enough. These students are often seen as placeholders who cannot contribute meaningfully.

Whether “intelligent” or not, this social construct seems more like a burden.

Intelligence can be isolating. When you are constantly striving for certain grades or academic achievements, many people around you may not understand the pressure you face. As a result, life becomes centred around books and academics, leaving little room to live beyond school.

Although I have a close group of friends, I often lack the time to socialise fully and participate freely in life beyond academics. For much of my life, my happiness depended on whether I achieved good grades, rather than on living as a whole person.

Social expectations

This extends beyond students; it also affects parents and teachers. In an interview I conducted with a parent of three children, she described intelligence as something spiritual, something innate that can be developed within a child.

This was her personal belief. However, because society equates intelligence with academic success, she often found herself yielding to external pressures and becoming harder on her children than she intended.

She shared an example of her son, who had to drop mathematics at some point in his life as he was not doing too well in the subject. In my society, “smart” children are often associated with studying scientific subjects and taking the highest level of mathematics.

Although she personally did not see this as a significant problem, societal expectations led her to question her son’s intelligence and future.

As a person who grew up academically talented, she wondered whether he was “intelligent enough.” She did eventually return to her grounding principles, but the pressure affected her parenting.

These societal standards create a cycle that affects students, parents and society alike. We find ourselves trapped in a constant pursuit of good grades and academic validation as measures of success.

Freedom to fail

Should intelligence really function this way? I do not think so. At this point, society has modified intelligence into more of a burden than a blessing.

Like any other talent, intelligence should be something to be enjoyed, not something that dictates our worth or consumes our lives. I am grateful for my academic abilities, but I also want the freedom to fail, because failure is a natural part of life.

I want to fail without feeling like I have disappointed everyone around me. Intelligence should be viewed as one talent among many, not as the sole determinant of success and future prospects.

As a society, we need to redefine intelligence. It is much more than just academic. Intelligence can mean using swimming skills to advance oneself, mastering the piano or excelling in interpersonal relationships, not only achieving academic validation.

Intelligence was meant to be a blessing, but society has turned it into a curse. Embracing this mindset will restore the “blessing” in intelligence. We need to value human potential in all its diverse forms. I am embarking on a journey to embrace that and I hope you, the reader, will too.

Questions to consider:

1. What does the author mean by “the freedom to fail”?

2. How do you think most parents measure the intelligence of their children?

3. In what other ways could intelligence be measured other than academics?